Students and researchers excavating the site of MSU's first dorm might have uncovered a link to the fire that destroyed the building - a trowel found in the dorm's basement.
In December 1876, the student residents of Saints' Rest had left for winter break, and the only people in the building were a group of workmen doing grouting in the basement. They most likely kept a fire to stay warm, said Duane Quates, an anthropology graduate student.
No one knows for certain what caused the fire that destroyed the dorm that year, but the local newspaper at that time, the Lansing Republican, blamed the workmen for the blaze, he said.
Today, a rusted trowel that might have been used by one of those workmen rests submerged in a bucket of water inside a McDonel Hall laboratory, where students involved in the Saints' Rest dig are cleaning and cataloging the artifacts found at the site.
A worker likely dropped the trowel and ran when the building caught fire, guessed Quates, who is also a teaching assistant.
He admitted most archaeologists prefer field work to lab work.
"Lab work is not something you look forward to; it's long, it's boring, it's monotonous," he said.
His hands cramp up from scrubbing and his nasal passages get clogged with dust, he said, but the work is essential to collecting data.
"The general rule is for every day ... you spend in the field, you spend three times as much time in the lab," Quates said.
Researchers need to know precisely where each artifact came from to make an accurate analysis of the site. Artifacts are delivered to the lab in brown bags marked with the square and level of soil they came from, or provenience.
"That's basically the artifact's address," Quates said.
When artifacts are received, they are either washed or drybrushed, then sorted into rough categories by type of material.
"We have a backlog right now," Quates said. "We get more bags coming into the lab than we are processing. It's kind of an impossible task to catch up."
Anthropology Assistant Professor Jodie O'Gorman, who is coordinating the dig along with anthropology Professor Ken Lewis, said having a lab on campus is a major advantage, and at some sites, archaeologists end up washing artifacts on picnic tables when they are done digging for the day.
Heather Mustonen, a graduate student in anthropology and a teaching assistant for the class, said the lab work will allow the researchers to understand the distribution of artifacts at the site, which could yield clues about what types of activities occurred in different parts of the building.
"When you're out in the field, you don't see everything coming out of the ground," said Mustonen, who will continue to analyze the artifacts in the fall.
On Wednesday, students used toothbrushes to scrub the dirt off artifacts recovered from the dig.
Students working in the lab said they preferred field work, but for the most part didn't mind the laboratory side.
"The first time it was a nice break (from digging)," said Katie Chapman, an anthropology and museum studies senior.
